Solar panels for the White House, and more

Solar panels for the White House

Obama is currently reinstalling solar panels on the White House, three years after he pledged to replace the 32 panels removed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Jimmy Carter installed the original solar panels.

TheAtlantic.com

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“The cash committee” expands

Banks, financial institutions, insurers, and accounting firms have donated $10 million to members of the House Financial Services Committee just this year. Demand for seats on what is known as “the cash committee” has grown so large that an extra row of seats had to be installed to fit all 61 members.

The New York Times

A sperm bank for animals

In a vast storehouse in Fort Collins, Colo., the U.S. Department of Agriculture has 700,000 vials of sperm from 18 different species of domestic animals, including cows, sheep, turkeys, goats, and chickens. In the event of some apocalypse, said Dr. Harvey Blackburn of the USDA, “we have the ability to repopulate entire breeds.”

ModernFarmer.com

Budweiser's ER track record

A new study of patients admitted to the emergency room because of alcohol-related injuries found that 15 percent had been drinking Budweiser. Coming in second was Steel Reserve Malt Liquor, which accounted for 14.7 percent of the ER visits.

NBCNews.com

The high cost of border enforcement

The U.S. last year spent $18 billion on immigration and border enforcement, more than the combined annual budgets of the FBI, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The New York Times